Seedcamp Plants Three New Seeds

By Kim Hjelmgaard

Three new teams have been chosen to join one of Europe’s most prestigious start-up incubators, Seedcamp, in a quest to be the next Big Small Thing.

Croatia’s Farmeron, Britain’s Fractal and Estonia’s TransferWise beat out competition from 20 handpicked entrepreneurial hopefuls at the Mini Seedcamp event in London, which is like an elevator pitch meets speed dating meets battle of the bands.

The format goes something like this: One stage, five minutes to pitch to a room brimming with venture capitalists and M&A types, all-day mentoring sessions and the potential to “supercharge” your young untested idea by connecting it to capital, talent and role models.

The winners of the one-day event, which took place on August 14 but were only announced late Tuesday, will now bask in all the rewards that Seedcamp’s founder Saul Klein had in mind when he started the program five years ago to, “jump start the entrepreneurial community in Europe.”

“This event is the tip of the iceberg,” said Seedcamp’s Carlos Eduardo Espinal. “This a program that these guys enter into and they become part of the family.”

Access to the “family” typically means relinquishing 8%-10% of a company in return for a €50,000 investment. But it is the network of hundreds of top-flight mentors and the opening of doors to Silicon Valley’s technology elite that is equally coveted by participants, who are vetted from scores of applicants across the region.

“Getting any start-up off the ground is extremely hard work, so we’re very pleased to be joining Seedcamp,” said Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise, a peer-to-peer currency exchange. Mr. Hinrikus, who was the first employee of Internet telephony company Skype, said that Seedcamp was a rare opportunity to access some of the most sought after and experienced technology voices in Europe and beyond.

“We’re looking forward to working and fighting to bring farmers online,” said Matija Kopic, just prior to boarding a plane back to Croatia with news of his team’s triumph. Mr. Kopic is the CEO of Farmeron, a service that aims to assist farmers by putting their data online and providing ways to conduct performance analysis.

Abs Farah of Britain’s Fractal, which has developed a technology that makes sure email designs render the same no matter the email client used, said he was hopeful that their Seedcamp win would “help us avoid start-up mistakes.”

Seedcamp runs several one-day events in Europe throughout the year, along with the much larger Seedcamp Week that sees the “family” of companies morph into a traveling road show and take to the tech corridors of the U.S., where they meet potential investors as well as business-development specialists of all stripes.

“The quality of these young companies has gone up and up every year,” said Facebook’s Director of Partnerships Christian Hernandez, who has attended Seedcamp as a mentor five times in three years. I’m quite impressed.”

Anil Hansjee, ex-Google M&A, said: “Every mentor at Mini Seedcamp wants to give something back. There’s a philanthropic part to this and we’re trying to support Europe’s start-up ecosystem.”

Add a Comment

About Tech Europe

Tech Europe covers Europe’s technology leaders, their companies, and the people and industries that support them — and their ideas. The blog is edited by Ben Rooney, with contributions from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.